Day: May 8, 2018

Katerina Valdivia Bruch was in India as a bangaloREsident at Natya & STEM Dance Kampni. During her stay in Bangalore, she was able to attend the BENCH India, a conference on gender inequalities in the performing arts, held on February 7, 2017, at Alliance Française de Bangalore, as part of the Attakalari India Biennial. What follows is a short survey on the current situation of women dancers in India and UK, the challenges they face in their practice and the projects and/or initiatives they are involved in. Tamsin Fitzgerald How did you start with The BENCH? What moved you to create this initiative? The...

Vancouver, British Columbia Jocelyn Pitsch reviews King Arthur’s Night, Neworld Theatre’s retelling of the Arthurian legend. With a neurodiverse cast and an emphasis on text and metaphor deconstruction, King Arthur’s Night is a compelling, comedic, and critical take on cultural myths and dynamics of power. The legend of King Arthur and his court is usually told with a focus on its tragic and dramatic elements. From its opening moments, King Arthur’s Night announces that it will be different. Neworld Theatre’s telling is a lyrical and comedic feast with a spectacularly uplifting sonic landscape by Veda Hille. Hille’s score carries the narrative through its occasional lags to produce...

Jones And Barry In The Home by Norm Foster; a 3P Productions, Directed by Derek Ritschel As we age, we have two choices: to make the most of the golden years or to admit defeat, viewing the time we have left as a dark tunnel leading to oblivion. In Norm Foster’s 2015 play—number 55 from Canada’s most prolific playwright—Jonas and Barry, who meet at Gateway Gardens seniors’ residence, represent the two viewpoints. Jonas aspires to be an aging Don Juan. Barry, whose daughter Rosie works at the home, has given up on the thought of a happy ending. Because...

Naturally, I was eager to see how Du, a progressive, boundary-pushing artist, would interpret Bach’s Goldberg Variations, the epitome of Baroque purism. Inside Carnegie Hall, the evening began promisingly, with an elegantly shot video, reminding us again of Du’s multi-disciplinarian identity. For those in the audience unacquainted with the work, Du’s video passionately argues the significance of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, tying the threads both musically and mathematically. A voiceover narration by Du describes the two years he spent at Boston’s New England Conservatory, devoted to unlocking the secrets of Bach, and ends on the cryptic statement that the Goldberg Variations rescued him “from the edge of darkness.”